Organza bags on figs

General Fruit Growing
#1

For fig growers in the US, have you used organza bags on your figs successfully to help combat birds and other insects (regular wasps)?

Luckily using some covering here is an option because there are no native fig/wasp pairs in North America, so the figs developed by state schools and grown non-commercially are self-fertile and don’t require a paired fig wasp for development.

I have an LSU Gold (I picked this one in the hopes the birds would be slightly less interested in it with only a slight color change with ripening). It’s holding 17 figs at the moment. That might sound like a pittance, but it’s the first year this tree has produced more than a couple of figs amnd I want to keep as many as I can for myself.

#2

Organza bags work well for birds and insects but not well for squirrels and chipmunks which cut the fruit down and/or rip the bag open.

#3

Well unfortunately I have a 70 foot oak tree with two squirrel nests in it about 20 feet from my tree.

It is what it is I guess… We’ll have to see.

Thanks for the post. Now I’ll know why they go missing! I hadn’t thought of the squizzles…

#4

Organza bags were very effective for protecting my figs from hornets and fruit flies last year, in the previous year my crop was completely decimated by these two pests.

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